Musa ingens in West Papua
 

I saw this posted on Facebook and had to sure. Dang impressive!

Photo reportedly taken during guided tour earlier this month: "trunks of the gargantuan Musa ingens, world's largest banana. Arfak Mountains, West Papua"

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Wow. That looks insane.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

You would have to be creative to overwinter one of those in my zone 8. Amazing plant. What does the fruit look like? Flower, leaves?

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Don't really know, I'm assuming it does not produce edible fruit.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Dude I want one!!!

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Description:
The pseudo-stem can be 10-15 m high with a circumference at the base of the plant of 2 m.

The leaf sheath is waxy at the bottom and reddish tinted at the top.

The petioles are up to 60 cm long. The leaves are up to 5 m long and 1 m wide.

The inflorescence is enormous and hangs from a huge, smooth peduncle of 10 cm in diameter. It wears about 20 basal hands, each with 16-25 hermaphrodite flowers.

The banana bunch is big, very compact and weighs about 60 kg. The ripe bananas are about 18 cm long and 3-4 cm wide. The fruit is inedible. The seeds are smooth with an angular outline, very variable in shape, dark brown or black, 4-10 mm in diameter with a 2 mm deep hilum hole.

Produces few suckers.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

I am not a expert but is that photo real.
Something doesn't look right.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

I think I can get it under the house for winter lol

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Haha.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

sorry but i need more than those pics to fall for that, please prove me wrong, and then tell me it's cold hardy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Anyone try getting this to fruit in a container?

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Like an empty swimming pool?:2730:

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I would be scared to grow those anywhere even close to a house in a warmer climate lol, Timberrrrrrr.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

OH............MY......................GOD...............

This is the best picture of Bananas I saw in my life.......................

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

It looks like Photoshop. In describing Musa ingens it is at the base of the trunk circumference of 2 meters. The circumference is equal to 2 × π × radius. 200:2:3.14 = 31.85 cm. Thus the diameter of the pseudo stem should be about 60 cm. In the photo right is a banana stem diameter of about 1.5 m. Compared with the growth of girls. Accordingly, the circumference is about 4.5 m. I have seen in India, bananas, whose pseudo-stem was 30-40 cm in diameter. The height of these bananas was 10-12 m. What should be the height of the banana stem with a diameter of 1.5 m?

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Markku has written me and he's familiar with the photographer. He is an expert in these species bananas and I am under the impression he found it credible.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

Jungle Forums • View topic - Got: Holy Grail Seeds, Musa ingens
Heres a thread gabe15 started a decade ago, there are some good pics, wonder how his went.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

I'm guessing the scale isn't entirely clear in this photo with the composition done in a manner to make the plants even more impressive. I imagine the women are standing much closer to the plant behind them than the one in front of them. The photographer specializes in exotic wildlife photography and studied in California but not based in Asia.

Re: Musa ingens in West Papua
 

There could be some perspective tricks going on, but I agree in that I don't think there is any reason to doubt the photo is real, M. ingens really is a massive plant and I've seen many other photos which also show similar size reference to people nearby. I would love to go see them one day.

I never could get any to germinate, even in vitro, and as it turns out there is actually an endophytic fungi of some sort which lives inside the seeds, making it seemingly almost impossible to germinate in vitro (at least in my experience, as well as that of a veteran tissue culture expert who also tried to germinate them in the 80's following the PNG Musa collection mission by then INIBAP. He also mentioned that the plants were full of endophytes making tissue culture of the meristems very difficult, and ultimately they all failed). I wouldn't doubt the endophyte has some role in it's germination in nature.